Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/75

 "The latter we will do," resumed the Captain, "Punishment may, perhaps, recall him to reason."

Having said this, he ordered two of the gang to carry me to the place of confinement; they mounted their horses, took me between them, and hurried away with me at a furious rate. We arrived with the first dawn of day at the bottom of a hill, where I forcibly was dragged through the bushes and thorns fettered with heavy chains, and carried through a narrow passage into a dark dungeon; gropeing about I found myself surrounded with straw, the muddy smell of which left me no doubt that it was half rotten.

Having lingered many hours in that terrible abode of misery, without either hearing or seeing any body, I at last was hailed by the distant hollow sound of approaching footsteps, dying away sometimes, and then vibrating again faintly on my ear; at once they grew more and more audible, and the glim-